DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY –  Fall 2025

HIST*4040 Topics in Scottish History

Weekly Course Format: 2 * 1.5 hour seminar

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Course Synopsis

This course examines Scottish tourism and travel in the modern period, using the remarkable Scottish Studies Collections of the University of Guelph library, which are unrivalled in scope outside the UK. Archival documents have been digitized and made accessible for this course. You will undertake original research which addresses key issues in modern Scottish historiography and the wider history of global tourism and travel using Scotland as a case study.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, you will:

1. evaluate key issues in the historiography of Scottish travel, and in the relationship between the Scottish experience and the wider history of tourism and travel;
2. assess best practices in historical research design and develop your own research proposal and plan;
3. engage critically with a wide range of manuscript, print, and other source materials, including visual culture, to illustrate your advanced understanding of the broad textual field of travel history;
4. engage in independent and collaborative projects that are grounded in best practices in archival analysis, with particular sensitivity to digitized resources;
5. synthesize historical argumentation and develop a major original research project that systematically explores a key question in Scottish travel and tourism history.

Methods of Evaluation and Weights

Texts and/or Resources Required

All materials are available online, in Course Reserve, and through digitized records at Archival and Special Collections at the McLaughlin Library.

Please note: This is a preliminary web course description only.  The department reserves the right to change without notice any information in this description.  The final, binding course outline will be distributed in the first class of the semester.